Valentine From A Vampire
by Tysonkaiexperiment
Summary: [COMPLETE!][Soiku][Vampire ThreeShot] Every Valentines Day Riku uses his cab service to drive girls up to the Katori mansion, where they go in lively but come out different. What happens when it’s a boy and Riku’s in love with him? Can Riku save him?
1. Parts I through V

Hey all! I had read this story in a book of amazing vampire stories that I purchased, and I instantly fell in love with it; it really did call to me to be re-written for Riku and Sora. There's no real reason why I chose Marluxia, he just fit the character well.**  
**

* * *

**Valentine For A Vampire**

**Original Story By**: Daniel Ransom

**KH Revision By**: Tysonkaiexperiment

**Disclaimer**: The plot and everything is owned by Daniel Ransom, please go read his works they are amazing (as you'll soon see). The characters are owned by Disney and Square Enix. This means I own nothing.

**Parts I-V**

* * *

**I**

There was only one way to do it, twenty-six-year-old Riku Umino told himself that gray February afternoon, and that was to plain and simple do it: Pick him up in his Checker cab as he usually did at six o'clock and then, after he'd been riding a few blocks, say casually as possible, "You know, Mr. Kaze, there's something I think you should know about the man you're going out with. He's a vampire."

So all afternoon, transporting fat old ladies and skinny old men and rude businessmen and fickle suburban housewives, Riku rehearsed his lines pretty much the way he'd memorized his part in the eighth grade play nearly fourteen years earlier (he'd played a Pilgrim)—by saying them over and over again until they'd lost all meaning. He tried variations on them, of course, trying to minimize the shock they would have on him—"Say, have you noticed your boyfriend's teeth?" or "Is this the first vampire you've ever gone out with?" or "Was that catsup all over your friend's mouth last night?"—so he wouldn't hate him for saying it. (Because hating him was the exact opposite of what he wanted him to do.)

But really, when you came right down to it, there wasn't any graceful way to say it. Because when you came right down to it, calling somebody a vampire was a pretty serious accusation.

Riku sighed and kept driving, thinking over his lonely lover-less life and what an odd business life was, the older you got. Riku, six foot, slender, still gangly despite a deep voice and a need to shave twice a day, had come to the city five years ago after finishing junior college with an associate degree in retail. Unfortunately, his arrival coincided with the recession and so he'd drifted into hacking, working for a man who'd had his larynx removed and who now had to talk through one of those buzzer jobbies that sounded like bad sci-fi sound effects. The hack owner spoke just clearly enough for Riku to know he was a cheapskate.

The vampire, a man handsome as a screen star of the forties (complete with hair sleek as black ice), was named Marluxia Katori.

Riku had met him four years ago while hauling a young woman named Larxene out to Katori's Dracula-like estate. He'd seen the way Larxene had gone into the place—a real live American girl given to lots of chitchat and some flirtiness—and how she'd come out. Larxene, pale, soft-spoken now, was never the same again. He took her out there several times afterward and then one day she stayed permanently, or at least she didn't call in for a ride back to the city. He had no idea what had happened to her. Not then, anyway. All he knew for sure was that on Valentine's Day of that year her personality underwent a most curious transformation.

Then came the next two Valentine's Days and two more women—one named Namine, who had eyes soft as a young animal's, and one named Kairi, who had remarkable legs—went in one way and came out the other.

But even then Riku hadn't allowed himself to use the word. He just said to himself that there were some weird doings involving drugs or hypnotism or maybe even UFOs going on inside the vast walled estate. Because even alien creatures with pop-eyes and

no voice boxes were easier to believe than—

—than vampires.

Then one night, cruising past the estate late with a drunken fare, Riku had glimpsed something truly eerie at the gate of the place.

One moment Marluxia Katori had been standing there and the next moment… Marluxia Katori was gone.

Riku didn't know if he'd turned into a bat or a slug or an Avon lady, but he sure went somewhere and there was only one semihuman creature who could do anything like that and that was—a vampire.

Riku spent the next month sitting up nights recording all this material on his Sony recorder. He had vague notions of maybe going to the police but every morning that he got up with that thought on his mind, he started thinking of the cops he'd met through hacking and what hard cynical bastards they were and how they'd respond to somebody who told them there was a vampire living in the mansion on the southeastern edge of this Midwestern city.

Right.

Then this year, three weeks before Valentine's, Sora Kaze got in his cab and asked to be taken to the mansion, and just like that, Riku fell in love. He was a glowing brunet model who was known for working with his twin brother, Roxas, however it was only Sora who got in his cab. The brunet was given to deep (and, he imagined, poetic) sighing and long blue gazes out the cab window at wintry trees and snow-capped waves slamming the concrete piers.

Every twenty minutes since meeting him he had mentally proposed. Every thirty minutes he thought about their adopting a child (he wanted a kid even if he wasn't quite sure what the hell he was going to do with the little bugger). And every forty minutes he faced up to the terrible fact that on this Valentine's Day, tonight, sleazy Marluxia Katori was going to convert one more unwitting American person into a creature of eternal darkness (or whatever they always said on those great Hammer films WTBS always ran at 2:00 a.m. every Friday night).

He was going to turn Sora Kaze into a vampire.

Or he thought he was, anyway.

But a hack driver named Riku Umino had different ideas.

**II**

"Hi, Riku."

"Hi, Mr. Kaze."

"Gosh."

"What?"

"You think you'll ever stop?"

"Stop what?"

"Calling me 'Mr. Kaze.' "

He flushed. "Oh. Right. I forgot. Sora. I'm supposed to call you 'Sora.' "

"Please."

So he sat back and he aimed the Checker into traffic, making the ride smooth as he could for him.

"Boy."

"What?" he asked.

"Long day. Whoever says modeling is a glamorous profession just doesn't know."

"Tired, huh?"

"Exhausted."

"Great."

"What?"

"I said, 'Late.' "

"Late?"

"I meant—after a long day, it's late. Maybe you shouldn't go to the mansion tonight. Maybe I should turn the cab around and take you to your apartment house. Maybe you're coming down with something, Sora, and should go straight to bed." He said all this in a rush. He was hopeful he'd agree and he'd flip the cab around and race to his apartment and then stand guard all night to make sure that Katori didn't get in.

But now he laughed. "Oh, no. I'd never be too tired for tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Valentine's Day. Marluxia has promised me a very special gift."

Riku gulped. "You have any idea what it is?"

He laughed again, more softly this time. "No, but you can bet when Marluxia Katori says a gift is going to be special, it's going to be _very_ special."

He watched him in the rearview. Outside, gray night had fallen, the only lights red and blue and green neon reflected in dirty city snow. But in the rearview his face positively radiated. For a moment he did a dangerous thing—closed his eyes to say a silent prayer for courage.

The time had come.

He'd left him no choice.

He had to tell him the truth about Marluxia Katori.

"Gosh, Riku, look out!"

Snapping his eyes open, he saw that he was about to sideswipe a city bus that moved through the gloom like a giant electric caterpillar.

"Riku, are you all right?"

"Yes," he said. "But you're not."

"What?"

"I said you're not all right."

"Well, that's not a very nice thing to say."

"Oh, I didn't mean you're not all right OK. I meant you're not all right—you're in danger."

"Danger?"

"Sora, would you let me buy you a cup of coffee?"

"But, Riku, I told Marluxia—"

He turned around and said, "Sora, there's something you should know about Marluxia."

"Oh, Riku, I know what you're going to say." He sounded young and disappointed. "That he's a playboy. That he'll drop me as soon as he's bored and it won't be long before that happens." He touched him on the shoulder and a wonderful warmth spread through his entire body. He'd never touched him this way before. "It's just a storybook fling, the only one I've ever allowed myself. Really. In high school I didn't have time because I was always a yearbook photographer and was on assignment. In college I didn't have time because my parents were poor and I had to work my way through. And during my first five years of modeling I didn't have time because I had to take every job that was offered me. Don't you see, Riku, this is my one chance at really having a good time. That's all."

Riku pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald's. Against the gray night it looked like a big colorful toy box filled with tiny people walking around inside.

"Sora, there's something I've got to tell you and I guess I have to do it right here, without even waiting to go inside, right in front of Ronald McDonald and everything."

"Gosh, Riku, what's so urgent?"

"Marluxia."

"Marluxia's urgent?"

"No," Riku said, "Marluxia's a vampire."

**III**

They got Cokes and Riku got french fries and they took the most isolated table they could find, right on a plastic outsize Egg McMuffin who had two red eyes and kept winking at Riku.

"Vampire," Sora said. "Gosh, Riku, that's really the most original one I've heard yet."

"Original what?"

"Oh," he said, "line, I guess you'd call it. I mean, I'm flattered." He startled him by putting his hand over his and gazing blue into his eyes. "You're a very nice guy, Riku, and over the past few weeks, we've really gotten to know each other in a strange way. And if Marluxia wasn't in the picture—" He withdrew his hand and shook his adorable brunet head and laughed. "But to be honest, Riku, calling him a vampire is going overboard, don't you think? How about a drug dealer? Or Communist spy? Or even a pornographer? But a vampire?" Then the smile faded from his eyes. "Riku, you don't really believe in vampires, do you?"

"I didn't."

"Didn't?"

"Till I took Larxene and Namine and Kairi out to his mansion on Valentine's Day and they changed."

"Changed?"

"Yes," Riku said, "changed."

So he told him, in detail, how they'd changed. The chalky skin. The dead eyes. The sullen silence. "Vampires," Riku said.

He took one of his french fries and nibbled at it. He'd explained to him once that he always nibbled at food. To keep his weight for the camera, that was the most pleasure he could allow herself—nibbling. Riku wanted to be frustrated at Sora's brother Roxas for allowing such a thing, but maybe the blond had done it also, maybe it was a model thing and Riku just didn't know.

"Have you ever been heartbroken, Riku? Wanted somebody you couldn't have?"

He stared at him. "Uh, yes."

"Do you remember how you acted?"

"Acted?"

"The depression, the weight loss, the long silences? That's what you're describing here, Riku, nothing more. Marluxia decided it was time to get rid of these people and move on to new ones, so he dropped them and that was how they reacted."

"Then why would they keep going back to the mansion?"

"Why, to plead their cases. Beg him to reconsider." He had another french fry. "You've been heartbroken before, haven't you, Riku? You do know what I'm talking about?"

Without hesitation, he said it, "Sora, I'm heartbroken right now."

"You are?"

"Yes. Over you."

He blushed. For all his beauty and sophistication, Riku had found Sora to be not only modest about his looks but just as socially vulnerable as he was himself. "Oh, Riku." He put his hand back on his. "That's really sweet and I really appreciate it but—right now there's Marluxia."

"Please let me take you back to your apartment tonight, Sora. Just till after Valentine's Day passes. He's got something about Valentine's Day."

"Riku, listen, please." He sat back in the seat. "As I've tried to explain, I know this is just a fling and nothing more. But I'm enjoying it. I like being in a grand house where there are servants out of the nineteenth century and where classical music is always playing and where you sit on Louis XVI furniture and where you sip French wine from huge goblets in front of a roaring fireplace and where your tall, dark, handsome lover wears a red silk dinner jacket and speaks to you in a voice that gives you goose bumps."

He laughed. "For a boy whose father ran a corner grocery store, Riku, that's pretty heady stuff."

So Riku, seeing the odds he had to overcome, said it: "He disappeared."

"What?"

"Vanished. Did you ever see the original _Dracula_?"

He sighed. "Oh, Riku, please. It isn't fun anymore. This vampire thing, I mean. It really isn't."

"He did, Sora." He raised his hand like a Boy Scout. "On my love for you, I swear it. One second, he was in my rearview and then he just disappeared. Vanished. The only people who can do that are vampires."

A certain pity had come into his eyes now. "Riku, would you take me out to the mansion—and would you do me a favor?"

"Anything. You know that."

"Just don't talk about this anymore, please. Because I am starting to get scared—but not for myself—for you. I hope you're just saying all this because you love me and want to start seeing me. I hope you're not saying it because—." And here, for the first time, he looked uncomfortable. "Because you truly believe it, because then—..."

"Then what?"

"Then I'd say you needed to see a shrink or something."

**IV**

Gates of black iron covered the entrance to the mansion. Ground fog shone silver in the light of a half-moon. Beyond the massive stone walls light from mullioned windows spread yellow across the snow.

"I guess I should go in now."

They'd been sitting in his cab for twenty minutes now—the radio tuned low to an FM station playing some soft Stanley Clarke songs—and really not talking much at all.

It was just that every time he started to put his hand on the door handle, he turned around and said, "Please, Sora, please don't go."

He's said it four times now and four times he had complied.

But he knew this time—hand on the door, a kind of pity in his eyes—that he would go.

"Sora, I—"

"I really do have to go."

"He's a vampire, Sora. Honest and truly."

"You're sweet, Riku. You really are. You care about me so much and—."

Then he startled him by leaning forward and kissing him gently on the lips.

His mind literally spun; his heart was a wild animal.

"Sora, please—"

But then the back door opened and the dome light went on, exposing the shabby insides of the cab, the battered dash and the smudged seat covers and the big red, white, and blue thermos he carried coffee in. This was his life—the life of a shabby hack in a shabby cab. He guessed he couldn't blame him (his eyes rising to see the imposing mansion against the gray night sky) for wanting the type of life Marluxia Katori offered.

_Except Marluxia Katori was a vampire._

"Sora—."

This time he touched a finger to his lips and then touched that same finger to his lips and then he was gone, lost in fog, the gates opening automatically now that he'd inserted the access card Katori provided all his victims.

Larxene.

Namine.

Kairi.

Gone.

"Sora!" he cried but already the gates were creaking open and then creaking closed and he was lost to him forever.

**V**

His were the particular pleasures of the lonely. He could eat what he wanted (Snickers, Fritos, Good 'N Plentys) and watch what he wanted. (Tonight, unable to sleep, thinking of what was happening to Sora, he started watching _Twins of Evil_ but switched channels as soon as the vampire theme started getting oppressive, and then tuned into the Home Shoppers Channel, a subculture even more fascinating than professional wrestling or professional religion. Who waned to buy a George Washington clock that recited the names of the first thirteen colonies over and over again? Apparently thousands of people did, and at $48.31 apiece. He had purchased only one thing from the Shoppers Channel, a genuine longbow with quiver and arrows. Over the past six months the bow had become his sole hobby. He was reasonably good with it.) Finally, fitfully, he slept on the couch of his drab efficiency apartment.

Then it was morning, the sky a light shade of gray. He shaved, showered, ate his bran, did his sit-ups, and then said an Our Father and three Hail Marys for Sora. This was around 7:30. Around 8:30 he called the modeling agency where he worked, and said he was his brother (was Roxas even there?) and asked if he could find out where he was working today and, after only a teensy bit of hesitation, the woman gave him the address and even the phone number where Sora could be found so his brother (in from Egypt; what the hell—if you lie, lie big. Had Roxas even been to Egypt?) could surprise him.

So he promptly called the photography studio where he was on location today and was surprised to learn that he was there.

He hadn't called in sick.

He hadn't just mysteriously vanished.

He was there.

Working.

Could he possibly speak to him?

"Afraid not. We're in the middle of a bitch of a production problem here and he's really tied up. If you'd care to leave your number, though, we could have him call you back."

Baffled, Riku said, "No thanks. Thank you." And hung up.

The rest of the morning, before he had to start hacking (you had to average seventy hours a week behind the wheel if you wanted to reach even the official poverty level of income), he went to the laundromat and to the supermarket and to the video rental store and then to the submarine place where he got this salami hogie that could have fed a Third World nation.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, he had started to whistle and the rest of the day he whistled his ass off because he'd proved him wrong and there was nothing he'd wanted more than to be proved wrong.

Marluxia Katori might be a jerk-off but he wasn't a vampire.

And eventually he'd dump him and then he'd go through a period of heartbreak and then he'd entrust the rest of his life to Riku.

At least, that was the notion that got Riku to whistling and kept him whistling all day.

Around two he went down to the cab company, to the underground garage that always stank of wet concrete, and said a few words to the man without a voice box and then got in his cab and started his workday.

The first two hours went slowly. There was a chatty plump woman going to the hospital to see her herniated husband. There was a somber priest who made a magnificent sign of the cross whenever they passed a Catholic church. And there was a very tiny woman who smoked those 100 mm. cigarettes and coughed so hard she jumped around on the backseat.

Then came February dusk, lights up in stores, people slanting into the bitter wind running to garages and bus stops, and then he thought of a wonderful idea.

He knew just where Sora was.

Knew roughly what time he'd get off.

Why not go wait for him there?

Which is what he did, still whistling all the time, shaping the words of his apology, getting ready to laugh a lot about his stupid notion that Marluxia Katori was a vampire.

The studio was on the northwest part of town, in a forlorn section of the city. He was parked at the curb for nearly an hour before he began to think that maybe the session had ended early and he'd gone home.

Ten minutes later he sat up and was all ready to go when he saw him in the rearview coming out of the door with his twin. Apparently they were separating, as Roxas was beginning to turn the nearby corner and Sora continued to walk forwards towards the street.

Behind him, suddenly a yellow cab pulled up.

He'd phoned for somebody else.

He jumped from the car and over the roof and yelled, "Sora! Tell him to go on and let me give you a ride!"

He saw him, of course, and recognized him. But he started to get into the yellow cab anyway.

He ran over to him, grabbed his slender wrist before he could close the door.

"I'll take him," Riku said to the angry-looking cabbie. Riku flung a ten-dollar bill at the man. Then he tugged on Sora's arm and said, "Come on. Please. All right?"

He sighed, looked embarrassed that the cabman was watching them, and then said softly, "All right."

So he got out of one cab and got in another, and then Riku ran around and got behind the wheel and had them in traffic in moments.

"You going home or to the mansion tonight?"

"The mansion."

He shook his head and said, laughing at himself as they reached a red light, "I don't want you to hold it against me."

"Hold what against you?"

His foot on the gas as soon as the light was green, Riku very slowly began to slide into the intersection. "Come on, Sora. You know—my theory about Marluxia being a vampire."

"That's the trouble," Sora said and began suddenly and madly to sob. "You were right. He _is_ a vampire."

And Riku slammed on the break, right in the middle of the intersection.

* * *

**Tke**-I hope you guys enjoyed part one of three, the next two should be coming extremely soon, I adore Daniel's story. Hopefully I'm getting you willing to read more of his works. Review please!


	2. Parts VI through XI

There is a somewhat bit of lime/lemon in this, you have been warned.

* * *

******Valentine For A Vampire  
**

**Parts VI—XI**

**Original Written by: Daniel Ransom**

**KH Redone Version by: Tysonkaiexperiment**

* * *

******VI**

For the next two hours they drove through every part of the city imaginable, they'd narrowly missed incoming traffic from the earlier intersection and had gotten away before anyone could point them out. They drove until Riku was nearly out of gas. Past glum slums and palaces; through shopping districts and industrial zones; and along the river where ice shone like glass in moonlight.

Sometimes Sora talked, though little of it made sense, but mostly he alternated between sniffling and sobbing and staring out the window.

Then he slept.

The radio off, the cab gliding along two-lane asphalt, the only manmade object in sight a radio tower with a single red warning line at its top—in this silence his snoring was reassuring because Riku thought, Sora can't be a vampire: vampires don't sleep at night.

Marluxia Katori might have hypnotized him, or voodoo'd him, or drugged him, but he didn't turn Sora into a vampire.

He drove and was hungry suddenly and thought of how good a big slice of double cheese pizza would taste along with a cold mug of beer.

"Have you looked in your rearview mirror yet?" Sora asked, sounding muzzy with sleep.

"Huh?"

"Your mirror. You still don't believe me do you, Riku? So look back at me and then look in your mirror."

So he did. Turned around and saw Sora looking beautiful if slightly mussed in the backseat. Then turned around and looked for his image in the rearview.

And saw nothing.

"My God."

"Pretty crazy, huh?"

"My God." He said again.

"Imagine how I feel." He said, and started sniffling again.

"Then he really did bite you on the—"

"On the arm."

"The arm?"

"It's harder to see the puncture wound on the arm. He laughed about it afterwards. He said the world would know there were vampires if all these women and men walked around with big holes in their necks. Here."

Sora pushed his lovely right arm over the front seat and then pulled up his sleeve and, after pulling up a Band-Aid, showed it to him. By now the teeth marks had scabbed over into what appeared to be a very bad infection of some kind.

"So that." He said, "Was my very special Valentine's gift."

"Why does he do it on Valentine's Day?"

"Because that's when he became a vampire. Four hundred years ago. In London. He's sentimental about that day." He sighed, "I have to admit that part was fascinating."

"What part?"

"Hearing about London four hundred years ago."

"He talked to you?"

"Oh, sure. I mean, after I woke up from the bite—it put me out an hour or so—and after he got me calmed down, we had a pretty regular night. He made me dinner—we had shrimp with black bean sauce; he's a great cook—and then we listened to his big band records and then we talked. Except now he was free to tell the truth about himself, including what London was like in those days." Then suddenly he broke into sobs again.

"Why are you crying? Except for getting turned into a vampire, it sounds like a pretty wonderful night." Riku heard jealousy in his voice.

"Because I haven't told you everything."

"What's everything?"

"That I'm part of his entourage now. Forever."

"His entourage?"

He had to stop crying to tell Riku. Riku took a small box of Kleenex from the front seat and handed it back to Sora. He looked in the rearview again just in case the first time had been a fluke.

It hadn't been.

"He has more than thirty men and women living there at the mansion. They're pretty regular people, for the most part—everything considered, I mean. He keeps them healthy and beautiful and he uses them for sustenance and he uses them for sex and everything's fine as long as he gradually replenishes the supply by adding a new one every Valentine's Day. It's really not a bad life if you like total security—but I hate it, Riku. Already I hate it."

"He has a harem."

"Yes," Sora said, "that's exactly what it is, Riku, a harem. He's the ultimate male chauvinist. He calls the girls vampirettes."

"But I thought vampires—."

"Skulked around alleys? Preyed on young women in the fog? Perched on window ledges disguised as bats?"

"But the night I saw him disappear—."

"It's because you looked in your rearview mirror. The thing about turning yourself into a bat is strictly comic-book stuff. Anyways, he's very squeamish about bugs and rodents and such. Unnaturally so." He paused and stared out the window at the silver hills again.

"I'm going to help you." Riku said.

"Riku, that's so sweet, it really is. But you can't help me."

"There's got to be something—."

"What? Go to the authorities? Even if you did prove to their satisfaction he was a vampire, you'd be dooming me the rest of my life—and it's going to be a long one, Riku, it really is—to be kept in a prison somewhere by the authorities. No. Riku." He leaned up and touched his shoulder, "Please don't do anything. You'd probably only it worse." He paused, "Do you know what time it is?"

"Eight thirty-five."

"Gosh, you'd better get me back to the mansion."

"I thought maybe we could have something to eat. A pizza or something."

"I'd like to but he's very strict about hours."

"Hours?"

"He runs the place like a dorm. We keep all our jobs—sleeping all day is another myth—but we have to be back to the mansion by nine or we get demerits."

"You're kidding."

"No, he's got this big chart in his den. He puts stars by your name—gold if you've been great, blue if you've been good, and black if you've been bad."

"What happens if you get black?"

"I don't know and I'm afraid to find out."

So, not wanting to get Sora a black star, he broke the speed limits getting back to the mansion.

It was 8:57 when he pulled up in front of the iron gates.

He said, "God, Sora, I've got to see you again. I do."

"Even though I'm a vampire?"

"Sora, you could be a werewolf and I wouldn't care. I really wouldn't."

"Oh, Riku." He said, and brought his face to Riku's and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. He felt a few degrees cooler than most human beings, but that was about the only difference.

He looked up at the mansion's spires against the gold disc of the moon.

"Gosh." Sora said, "I wish we could go back to my apartment. We could order in a pizza and snuggle up on the couch and—" He started crying again, "If only I listened to you, Riku."

"You better hurry, Sora," He said, "I don't want you to get a black star."

Miserably, he nodded, "You're right."

As Sora got out of the car and the dome light came on, Riku took his arm and said, "I love you, Sora."

And Sora said what he waited so long to hear in return, "The weird thing is, as soon as I came to last night, the first person I thought about was you, Riku, even before I thought about my parents or my brother or my cats or my lovebirds." He smiled sadly, "I guess that must mean I love you too."

Then he was gone.

**VII**

The next day Riku called the modeling agency to find out where Sora was working this time, but the woman on the other end said, "Is this her brother again?"

"Uh, yes."

"I checked his files, his brother's not even in the country."

"Oh."

She hung up.

He spent the two hours before work at the library riffling through books on vampires—they had a surprising number of such volumes—but soon discovered that most of them did little more than promote myths. In books, Vampires sulked in alleys, preyed on the fog-enshrouded young women, turned themselves into bats. They didn't—unlike the only vampire Riku knew—cook gourmet meals, play Tommy Dorsey records and give his thirty girlfriends and boyfriends black stars for bad behavior.

He left the library and raced to a pay phone. He got the modeling agency on the phone again—the same woman. As she answered, he slid a handkerchief across the receiver and said, "This is Lieutenant Carstairs from the Fourth Precinct. We need to get in touch with one of your models. A Sir—" He paused, pretending to be looking at a notepad. "A Sir—"

"It's you again, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"You. The so-called brother. The pest. We've got enough creeps bothering our models. We don't need any more."

She slammed down the receiver.

**VIII**

That night he sat in front of the mansion, watching the ground fog wrap itself around the turrets and spires of the great stone house, hoping Sora'd try to make some kind of escape and would come rushing out to the gate.

He didn't and Riku just sat there, drinking Diet Pepsis, and then getting out of a cab and taking a pee in thick mulberry bushes where the occupants of passing cars couldn't see him, and then getting back inside the cab for more of his lonely vigil.

Two hours later he ended up on his couch eating Ding-Dongs with skim milk and watching _The Tall T_ with Randolph Scott. He fell asleep with a box of Cracker Jacks on his stomach.

In the morning, exhausted, he put on the only tie he owed and went down to the modeling agency where Sora worked. He also brought a small spiral tablet. A 35-mm. Camera was slung over his tan corduroy jacket.

The woman was about what he expected—short, overly made-up, with a dark-eyed gaze that could melt diamonds. "Yes?" She snapped when he went to take his place at the reception counter.

"I'm Bryant from the _Times_. I'm supposed to interview one of your models: Sora Kaze."

"The _Times_? The _New York Times_?"

He smiled, "I wish my paper was that important. No, I'm afraid I'm with _Modeling Times_." He hoped that his self-effacing smile would convince her he was telling the truth.

"Never heard of it."

"That's because we haven't published our first issue yet."

Then the woman did something odd. She sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and put her fingertips to her temples. "Say something."

"What?"

"Say something."

"What do you want me to—"

"It's you!" She said, "The fake brother. The phony cop. Now, you get out of here!" She stood up and pointed to the door, and he had no choice but to comply.

The rest of the day he drove his cab, taking every chance to cruise by the three studios where Sora normally worked, but finding no sign of him. That night he took up his vigil at the mansion again. Around midnight he thought he heard a scream, faint behind the fog, but he couldn't be sure if it was only his imagination and his exhaustion.

On the couch he watched _This Island Earth_ with Jeff Morrow and a woman who'd been a real babe named Faith Domergue, and fell asleep with a box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers on his chest.

He didn't wake till early noon and was therefore in a hurry, shaving while he peed, ironing a shirt while he ate his bran. He was fifteen minutes late starting his shift. The man without the voice box laid some very angry sci-fi effects on him.

There were skinny people, black people, white people, pudgy people, straight people, gay people, nice-looking people, repellent people, pleasant people, surly people—it was one of those inexplicably busy days. He didn't really get an opportunity to buzz past the studios where Sora generally worked and it was nearly eleven o'clock before he got to the mansion where he sat for twenty minutes and dozed off.

The stress of the past three days, plus the late hours, had drained him.

He went home and lay on the couch again, the movie tonight being one of his favorites, _D.O.A._ with Edmond O'Brien, who'd been the chunkiest leading man Riku had ever seen, but he was asleep even before the doomed Edmond realized he'd been fatally poisoned. A sack of chip-dip-flavored Lay's potato chips next to his head.

The pounding started around 4:00 A.M. At first he thought it was part of a nightmare he couldn't wake up from.

Pounding.

Finally, still thinking he was acting out a role in a nightmare, he got up and stumbled to the door, clumsily taking off the three security locks, and at last seeing who stood there.

Sora.

Tears streaming down the brunette's face.

A small overnight bag in his left hand.

"Riku." He sobbed, "Riku, may I move in with you?"

**IX**

Two hours later, over a pepperoni pizza delivered steaming hot, Sora said, "I don't blame you if you're scared of me."

"Why would I be scared of you?"

"Well…" He said, and stopped eating.

"Sora—" Riku began, and put his hand out to Sora.

But Sora stopped him, "There's a very good possibility I'm a vampire."

"But you look fine. You look wonderful in fact."

"I'm pale."

"Sure you're pale. But you've also been under a great strain."

"And this pizza is the first thing I've eaten in two days."

"It's just the stress really. I read a magazine article on stress and—."

"I don't want to—."

He stared at him, "To what?"

"To get you involved in this any more than you are already."

"But, Sora, I love you and you love me."

He started sniffling again, "But maybe it's not enough."

Riku sprang to the couch and sat next to him, "I know it isn't much." His hand swept the drag apartment, the dated posters from the seventies, the collection of sci-fi and horror paperbacks in orange crates, and the longbow and it's attendant paraphernalia. "But we'll move. Arizona. New Mexico. Oregon. Someplace, Sora—someplace where we can get started on a new life. And—."

Sora put his head on Riku's shoulder and Riku drew him to himself, "But I'm a vampire."

"Everybody's got things wrong with them, Sora. Everybody."

"But being a vampire is more than just something wrong."

So Riku kissed him because it was the only way to keep Sora quiet. In the course of the kiss, he realized how much he loved him. It was frightening—far more than vampires could ever be.

"I'll go to the bank tomorrow and draw out my saving and then we'll go to the bus depot and we'll leave for New Mexico. He'll never find us there."

Sora sighed, "That's what scares me."

"What?"

"I don't think he'll give up so easily."

"Sora, I promise. He won't even remember you."

"Oh Riku." He said, drawing closer to him for another kiss, "I sure hope you're right."

"I am right, Sora, I promise." Then he paused and gulped and said, "Sora, I—."

Sora smiled at him, "I know. Me too." Then he said, "Do you really think we're going to be together, Riku?"

"Always."

"You're not just saying that?"

"I promise you, Sora, I promise you."

For purposes of lovemaking and sleep, Riku decided to give him the royal treatment. He turned the sofa into a bed and dug out his only set of clean sheets from a cardboard box filled with a reasonably complete collection of Jonah Hex comic books.

The lovemaking was tender but exciting, and immediately afterward, Sora fell asleep in his embrace, there in the long shadows of the tiny apartment, the nimbus of streetlight like faded gold against the cracked west window, traffic sounds faint in the night.

Riku wondered; could this really end happily? This easily? Marluxia Katori just handing Sora over to him?

But eventually, no matter how compelling his doubts, he fell asleep, too, as crazy in love as he'd even been, the man in his arms all the things a man was capable of being—lover, friend, sister, partner, conspirator.

His last waking thought was of how wonderful life could be.

He was asleep maybe twenty minutes before a sound woke him. Through one groggily opened eye, he saw Sora in silhouette at the window; he was putting his clothes on.

"Sora—what's wrong?"

Nothing. He said nothing. Just continued to dress.

"Sora?"

Riku threw the covers back and went over to him. He wore nothing but his jockey shorts.

He got around in front of him and put both his hands on Sora's shoulders and started shaking him. He forced his face up so he could see his expression in the deep night shadows.

Sora's wyes were dark vacuums. All Riku could think of was some kind of hypnosis or mind control or—

Then Riku moved to the window rimed with silver frost around the edges and looked down into the street. A long black limousine sat beneath the streetlight. A tall, slender man dressed in a black topcoat stood outside the limo. He was staring directly up at Riku's apartment.

The man was Marluxia Katori.

"No, Sora!" Riku screamed, "Don't go with him! Don't go with him!"

He dashed to the sink, soaked a towel in cold water, came back to Sora, and pressed the icy cloth against the once-tanned face.

Dimly, he saw recognition in Sora's eyes.

"Sora?"

"Yes." He sounded robotic.

"If you go with him, you'll never be free again. Do you understand, Sora?"

"Yes."

"Then fight back. Resist the thoughts he's sending out." He shook Sora hard, "Fight back, Sora. You want to stay here with me. We'll leave for New Mexico in just a few hours. You'll be safe and happy and loved and—."

And then Sora let out an animal roar that paralyzed Riku.

He could not imagine such a sound coming from this gorgeous boy.

Nor could he imagine a boy—or a man, for that matter—possessing the sheer physical strength Sora displayed: he took Riku by the shoulders and flung him across the room, slamming him into the wall where the longbow hung.

The back of his head cracked against the plaster hard enough that a darkness even deeper than the night began to spread before his eyes and…

Just before tumbling into unconsciousness, he heard the terrible animal roar Sora'd made earlier… and then he heard his apartment door flung back… footsteps down the creaking wooden steps and…

And then despite every effort he felt himself pulled inevitably down into the waiting gloom that was not unlike death.

When he woke, his teeth were chattering from the cold. His head hurt him worse than the worst hangover he'd ever had. The window was purple-gold with dawn glowing through the frost.

The room, always a mess, was now a shamble, evidence of the strength Sora'd suddenly shown.

He needed clothes and he needed coffee and he needed to very carefully think through—

If he hadn't been right next to the fallen longbow, maybe the idea would never have come to him. But as he started to push himself to his feet, his fingers touched the sleek wood, the curving bow, and right then—right there in his jockey shorts and needing very badly to pee—Riku Umino got the idea.

And it was a wonderful idea, and he knew it was a wonderful idea as soon as he had it.

It was the idea that was going to win him Sora back once and for all.

**X**

"Peace." Xigbar Varhite said when Riku entered his carpentry shop three hours later. Xigbar, a tall skinny man with black-grey hair and an eye patch over one eye, wiped slim fingers on his black overalls and flashed Riku the V sign for peace, the way people used to greet others back in the sixties. He looked as if he hadn't shaved, bathed, or slept for several months.

Riku always thought of Xigbar as the last of the hippies, the one person he knew who would never give up the flower-power era. For instance, now the air was being stirred by the slashing sounds of Jefferson Airplane singing "White Rabbit" on the cassette deck. The shop, which was really a large converted garage that smelled sweetly of wood shavings, was decorated with posters of people such as Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, and Jerry Rubin. Nobody could ever accuse Xigbar Varhite of giving up the faith.

Xigbar picked up a tiny marijuana roach, lit it, toked deep and true, and then offered the clip to Riku.

Riku shook his head, "How's business?"

Xigbar nodded to various pieces of cabinetry in various stages of car piercing or staining. "Enough to last me a couple lifetimes." He smiled with teeth that would require two dentists to clean and then said, "Say—you're goin' to be haulin' me around Saturday night. Big sixties festival down at the Freak."

The Freak was a beer and wine bar near the railroad depot, where once a month they had a sixties night. Xigbar, who didn't want to get busted for drunk driving, always had Riku haul him back and forth in the car. That's how they'd met.

"Be glad to, Xigbar."

Xigbar had another toke, "So what brings you here, man? Especially with the bow. That mother looks fierce!"

"It is fierce, Xigbar. Very fierce. And that's why I need to talk to you. I need to make it even fiercer."

"How you gonna do that?"

"With your help, I'm going to make a very special kind of arrow."

"What kind would that be, Riku?"

"It's got to be a wooden stake that I can notch in my bow and shoot."

"A wooden stake?" Xigbar laughed, taking the final toke, "What you gonna hunt—vampires?"

Riku laughed right along with him, "You think you can do it?"

Xigbar shrugged, "Probably."

"It would have to be able to pierce—armor."

"That's why the English invented the longbow. So it could do just that." He took the bow, examined it. "That shouldn't be any problem."

"How long?"

"How long?"

"Yeah, how long will it take?"

"Well, I'd have to use the lathe and then fire-harden it and—"

"Xigbar, I need this arrow by six o'clock tonight."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not Xigbar."

"God."

"Xigbar, it's life or death."

Xigbar looked him over, "You look real strung out, man."

"I wish I could tell you."

Xigbar looked at him and said, "OK, man. The number of times you've kept me out of the drunk tank, I guess this is the least I can do for you." He nodded to the lathe, "You come back here at six tonight and I'll have it ready for you."

Riku put his hand on Xigbar's shoulder, "I wish there was some way I could repay you."

"There is, man."

"What's that?"

"Tell me the truth about why you want this arrow."

Riku laughed again, though the sound was obviously strained. "Like you said, I'm going to hunt vampires."

But this time Xigbar didn't laugh. "You know, man, I'm beginning to wonder if you're not serious."

**XI**

Riku spent the afternoon taking care of passengers. It seemed important to him to stay calm. What lay before him tonight required not only skill and luck, but also steady nerves.

Whether talking to the rich dowager who always told him about her son-in-law the songwriter ("Kenny Rogers calls him all the time just to talk.") or taking to Mr. Gunderson to his doctor's appointment ("I'm eighty-two and they want to know why I don't feel good—and that's why I don't feel so good, because I'm eighty-two that's why, the stupid bastids.")—whatever he did, his mind remained on the plan, or, as his mind thought of it. The Plan.

Last night, summoned to the waiting limo by Marluxia Katori, Sora had forgotten his bag in which resided the electronic access card that would let whoever possessed it inside the walled estate.

The card now rested in Riku's shirt pocket.

Four dragged by, five to six crawled: it was time to go to Xigbar's.

This time the cassette machine played Neil Young singing "My Old Man" and Xigbar had himself a much more formidable joint than the little roach he sported before. This one was fat enough to last for a couple hours of watching a light show.

"Here you go." Xigbar said, toking up.

What he handed Riku looked like a small tree that had been shaved down to the size of a baseball bat.

"Sure hope that bow of yours can handle this." Xigbar said.

"No problem." Riku said, holding the huge arrow. The feathers near the end of the nock were bright yellow.

"Thought I'd kind of dress it up." Xigbar said, "What do you think of the point?"

Pure wood, the point pricked Riku's finger at the slightest touch. A drop of blood appeared.

"Kind of heavy duty, wouldn't you say?"

"Riku, if I was into kissing guys, I'd plant a big one on your cheek."

Riku dug into the back pocket for his wallet, "What do I owe you?"

"I already told you."

"The cab ride?"

"Right."

"You got it."

Now so intent on his mission that he even forgot to say good-bye, Riku took the arrow and started to leave the garage.

"Hey." Xigbar said.

Riku turned around, "Oh, yeah, sorry. Shoulda said good-bye."

"No, not that." Xigbar said.

"What then?"

"Put the tip of it up by your nose."

Riku angled the long pointed shaft of fire-hardened wood to his nose.

Immediately, he pulled the arrow away from his nostrils. "Whew. What'd you dip it in, anyway? Sheep dung?"

Xigbar looked very proud of himself, "What else? Garlic."

* * *

**Tke**: Originally I planned for it to be Axel, but I eventually went with Xigbar. He fits the role so much better, the man is pretty amazing. Review please!

**Review Replies**:

**FlamingToxin**: I can do it! As long as I don't get anymore hand cramps from writing, hehe.

**Moonyasha**: I think I've held you long enough, time to let go so you can read!

**Sora's Savior**: Oh you'll find out why Sora goes back, and much more. Also, yes, vampires rule, they are completely awesome.

**StupefiedNarutard**: Well you're about to find out your answer here and now. Thank you so much for liking the fact that I've made this into a KH version! I tried to keep it as close as possible to the actual story!

**XHisui Yamadax**: A pink poodle, oh man, Marluxia, he would so own one! I might add that in another story!

**Xxxinsanekadaajixxx**: We all know Riku won't go down without a fight, especially for Sora.

**Yuki-Hibiki**: Glad you think so, I tried to keep it as close to the plot line as I could, so thanks!

**Coconut911**: Think of it this way, it's about… 14 parts long, so next chapter it'll be done!

**Bookworm0492**: Well California traffic can be pretty bad, so maybe it was just a bit of a wreck, nothing too bad.

**Jenny**: Don't worry, I won't abandon it, it'll just take me a while read a line, then type it, then read a line, then type it, etc, etc, etc, and change things to KH setting, so it'll take a while.

**Saiki518kuu**: Glad you like it, more coming your way!

**Wind-master-redmoon**: It's not my story, so sorry, can't help ya there. I just write it, that's how it goes.

**Darkness x angel**: Yes well, poor Sora is also denser than gravity, which explains his hair, so it's gotta give him points.


	3. Parts XII through XIV

Tke: This is the end

Sora: The end?

Tke: THE. FUCKING. END!!

Sora: wow, it took a bit of time…

Tke: yes well, there's action in this part, and then… that's it…

Sora: YES!!! SO HAVE FUN!! IT'LL ALL END HERE!!! AND REMEMBER, TKE DOESN'T OWN ANYTHING!!

Tke: yes, I own my name, which should be written Tke, not TKE, so yes, accept my damn name, and accept my last chapter!

X.X.X.X.X

**Valentine From A Vampire**

**12-14**

**Thank you to everyone who's ever read this and left me a wonderful comment!!**

**And to Kitara Strife: I am a major XigDem, LuxDem, and Zemyx fan. And I couldn't see Zexion in the postion Xigbar was in, so that's why Xiggy was chosen.**

X.X.X.X.X

XII

There was an electronic buzz and then the black grillwork of the gates parted and Riku went inside.

In the silver fog that lay across the land so heavily all he could see of the mansion was a single spire silhouetted against the round yellow disc of moon, Riku moved cautiously to the house.

Now that the gates had been opened, Marluxia Katori would be expecting somebody. Probably one of the women or men, done with their day's work.

Riku had to move quickly, and did, his feet making sucking sounds in the damp grass, the sound of his heart huge in his ears.

After ten minutes, he reached what appeared to be a large screened-in veranda. He tried the door—locked.

From his pocket he took a switchblade and clicked it open. He tore a four-foot gash in the screening and then went inside, carrying his longbow carefully in one hand, the arrow carefully in the other.

He crossed a flagstone walkway filled with summer furniture that looked dirty and cold on this winter's night. He went up three steps to a door that would take him inside. He put his hand on the knob and then whispered a prayer before turning it. If it was only open—.

Locked.

Glancing wildly around, he saw a window three feet off the veranda floor. He went over to it, pulling a deck chair with him. Standing on the tarpaulin seat, he peeked through the window. What he saw was a shadowy hallway at the far end of which appeared to be a vast living room filled with Victorian antiques.

He said the same prayer he'd said before. This time his luck was better. The window eased open and he dropped inside the mansion.

He lay in the shadows, smelling furniture polish and floor was and the remnants of a dinner that had included some kind of spaghetti sauce. Only after ten minutes did he make his move.

The living room—vast with a vaulted ceiling and huge fireplace—proved empty, as did an adjacent room which was filled with what looked like original oils by Degas and Chagall.

Carefully, he made his way through the first floor: dining room; kitchen; sewing room; den.

Nothing.

Then from upstairs he heard the scream.

Racing to the bottom of a staircase that fanned wider as it stretched in carpeted splendor to the second level. Riku gulped and prepared himself for the confrontation that had been inevitable since the first time he'd dropped Sora off at the mansion.

He crept up the stairs, the sound of an angry male voice growing louder the higher he went.

A wide corridor with walls of flocked red wallpaper; a large flattering portrait of Marluxia Katori himself decked out in a black suit and high white collar (eyes glistening as darkly as emeralds); partially opened the door through which the man's voice came—these were the first things Riku saw.

Hefting the wooden crossbow he got up on tiptoe and edged to the door.

Inside he saw a large group of women and men, dressed in everything from baby doll pajamas to diaphanous negligees, gathered in a circle in the center of a huge room appointed, as the living room was, with Victorian furnishings.

Pacing back and forth before the woman was a tall man in a red silk dinner jacket and black slacks. He was flawlessly handsome and flawlessly angry.

"I want obedience!" He snapped, "Not mere compliance!" He paused and said in a lower yet curiously more menacing tone, "None of you can escape me—so why not obey me?"

"We're people too!" A redhead, Riku recognized as Kairi, who had grown beautiful, and if Riku had liked women, would've enjoyed her lingerie and regular-sized breasts. "We have rights."

"You are not people." Marluxia Katori said, "You are vampires."

"So you're not even going to listen to our petition about forming a committee to change some of the rules?" Larxene asked from her seat beside Kairi, she hadn't changed at all from what Riku could see.

"I am the absolute master!" Katori screamed, "Not only the master of darkness—but the master of this house!"

It was then Riku saw Sora. He sat near the back. He wore a modest blue cotton nightgown that made him look little-girlish and all the more gorgeous. And by the way the brunette girl—wearing a rather curious orange version of the nightgown—the girl had obviously lent it to him. The blond next to him, smacked the brunette girl's arm and nodded his head over to Marluxia Katori, who watched them for a bit before the three's gazes went down.

Sora chose that moment to look up and when he did so, he saw Riku.

He held up the bow and arrow for Sora to see and then touched a finger to his lips, sshhhing him.

"There will be no more talk about committees or changing the rules or anything!" Marluxia Katori said. "And to prove it, I want all of you girls and boys in bed within fifteen minutes—with the lights out."

Riku gulped.

The moment was here.

He notched the arrow, gulped, said another silent prayer, kicked the door open, and pulled back on the bowstring.

Marluxia Katori did just what Riku hoped he would. Startled by the door's flying open, the vampire turned around to face Riku.

And Riku let go the stake that had been shaved into an arrow.

Katori, seeing what was about to happen, grabbed a nearly naked woman who had been standing a few inches from him—and pushed her into the path of the arrow.

She twisted as the stake went deep into her heart. The noise she made was nearly intolerable to Riku.

Then Marluxia Katori went crazy.

Teeth the size or wolf fangs appeared in the corners of his mouth, and his lips began to drop silver saliva.

"Oh gosh, Riku, now he'll get you for sure!" He heard Sora shout.

The idea had occurred to Riku.

As Katori moved forward, hands turning into talons now, Riku backed up against the staircase until there was no place he could go unless he jumped the considerable distance to the first floor.

"You have enraged me long enough!" Shout Katori, his face distorted by rage and spittle.

Behind Katori, Riku could see the fallen woman, the arrow sticking up out of her bloody chest like a lance.

He shouted to Sora: "Pull the arrow out and bring it to me!"

It was then that Katori's talons shredded through Riku's cheeks.

Riku spent the next two minutes dodging the taller and more athletic man, running down the hallway, only to be tripped—then pinned down, only to squirm free at the last moment.

He did not notice Sora until Katori had backed him up against a corner.

"Here, Riku!" He called and threw him the arrow.

It fell two feet short of Riku's grasp.

Katori, cursing, bent down to pick up the arrow. "I'll break it in half and then I'll do the same to you!"

But as he stopped, Riku sprang from the corner and kicked him hard on the side of the face, sending Katori awkwardly to his knees.

Riku snatched up the arrow and notched it for the second time in the bowstring. It was sticky with the woman's blood. Katori was on his forearms, trying to stand up with the wind knocked out of him from Riku's blow.

Then Riku let go of the giant arrow. It ripped through the vampire's heart with much force as it emerged from the beast's back, dripping blood and entrails.

The mast of darkness was dead as hell.

XIII

"Good bye." Said the brunette, who Riku just learned was named Olette, embracing Sora in the vestibule downstairs.

The brunette girl wore a gabardine business suit and carried a large gray piece of American Tourister luggage and had a tan London Fog draped over her arm. She sure didn't look like a vampire.

"Where will you go?" Sora asked.

"My uncle owns a travel agency in Cleveland. I'll probably give that a try first."

"We should have a get-together once a year."

"Yes, a picnic or something." The girl said. Then she put out her hand to Riku "I owe you a lot more than I can say."

He looked to Sora and smiled. "I had selfish reasons."

Quite seriously, the lovely brunette said, "I'll always be a vampire but now at least I'm my own person."

An airport limo pulled up and honked.

"Well," the girl said, "Good bye."

Then she walked outside to the sunlight that was almost white. The grass was a brilliant green. As usual in the Midwest, spring had simply shown up one morning, like a lover one had almost forgotten.

Riku said, "Well, that's the last of them."

"Yes." Sora said, smiling. "Every one of the women and men packed and away from this place." He leaned over and kissed Riku on the cheek, "Oh, Riku. We all owe you so much."

"You know I don't want gratitude, Sora. I did it because I love you." He nodded upstairs. "Now why don't you go upstairs and pack? Then we can get out of here too."

He kissed him again, this time on the lips, "It won't take long."

Sora went up the broad stairs. He entertained himself by walking through the room with the Chagall and Degas oils. It was warm in here.

The furnace in the basement was roaring. He had put Marluxia Katori's corpse in it.

Sora was back, an overnight bag in his hand, a few minutes later.

"Ready?" Riku asked.

"Oh, Riku, if you could only know how ready I am."

"Good. Then let's lock this place up and never think about it again."

He giggled, "Let's."

So they went outside into the brilliant day and he put the key in the lock and started to turn it and that was when a rough piece of wood scraped the knuckle of his left thumb.

And several small bubbles of blood appeared.

Riku laughed. "And Mr. Graceful strikes again." He said.

He finished locking the door and then turned around to look at Sora.

The fangs didn't alter his face that much. And Sora wasn't spitting all over the place. And his eyes weren't psychotic and crazed.

He was a vampire, OK, but at least he was a very pretty and feminine-looking one.

Sora started sobbing instantly and fell into Riku's arms.

An hour later they had completed their second lap around the huge estate. They had seen dogs, they had seen horses, they had seen deer; they had seen oak; they had seen maple, they had seen elm, they had seen rock and grass and lake.

And they had faced a terrible truth.

Now, sitting on a porch swing in the park pavilion: "We can't be together, Riku."

"Don't say that anymore. Please."

"It's true. The mere sight of blood—I'm a vampire. My teeth—"

"You didn't bite me. You're not some terrible beast. You're—"

"As vampires go, I'm probably pretty OK," Sora said, watching the course of a jay as it flew up to a tree limb. "I mean, I was a decent human being, so I'll probably be a decent vampire. But that still doesn't mean we can't be together."

"Oh please, Sora. Please don't say that anymore."

Sora stood up, then bent down to take Riku's hands and pull him up, too. Sora's eyes were wet with his tears. "I love you more than I've ever loved anybody, Riku. But it won't work and you know it and I know it."

"But it's no different from my marrying a Polynesian woman. There'll be some cultural differences at first but—"

"Yes. I don't cast a reflection, my whole body surges when I see blood, and I'm probably going to live to be a few thousand years old. But other than that I'll just be a typical suburban housewife, right, Riku?"

"Sora, I—"

Sora put his lips to Riku's. Their kiss was long and tender and halfway through. Riku recognized the kiss for what it was.

Good-bye.

Sora entwined his hand in Riku's and together they walked out of the estate, the grillwork gates closing behind them.

They stood out on the curb and Riku said, "What will you do?"

Sora tried to smile but it was mostly sad. "Right now I'm not thinking very clearly, Riku. I guess I don't have any idea at all what I'll do. Just whatever comes along, I guess."

Then he called his brother, asking for him to stop what he was doing, and if he loved him to pick him up. And after relaying the adress, Sora looked up and gave Riku a soft smile.

Roxas showed up, in fact, a good ten minutes before either expected. And when Sora got in the car, Riku could vaguely hear the blond asking Sora why he called him to come get him and why he wasn't at work like he was supposed to be.

Sora looked back only once, giving Riku one last smile—sad—before he looked ahead and never looked back.

Riku knew now, Sora knew too.

Good-bye.

Forever.

XIV

During the next year Riku saw a shrink who tried to convince him that none of it had ever happened, a priest who accused him of being a Satanist, a minister who wanted him to come on his TV talk show and discuss how even vampires could become good Christians.

He also tried singles bars, dating services, and old girl friends.

But no matter what he tried, there were still the lasting memories of Sora, and of their plans, and of how much he'd loved him and loved him still. Spring became summer became autumn became winter. A new cable channel appeared, one that played a lot of Monogram films, including the best of Charlie Chans and Bowery Boys, and that helped some, and scores of new types of junk food came along, and that helped a little bit, too.

But mostly there was just driving the cab and lying on the couch thinking about Sora. Thinking uselessly about Sora. He had tried all the agencies and all the studios, but there was no word of him. Obviously he had moved away.

He contented himself with cable and food that only a chemist could love.

He had only a vague idea of what day it was, that overcast February Tuesday.

He'd had his usual afternoon-load of people he liked and people he disliked. Now it was dusk and the dispatcher had just sent him to an adress near the downtown area.

He pulled up and waited in front of an aged brick building.

A man in a fashionable felt hat, one whose rim obscured his face, walked gracefully from the building and got in the car. He smelled wonderfully of cologne and a musk that Riku could only place as this man's.

He was halfway down the block before he said, "I forgot to ask, where would you like to go?"

All the man said was, "Why don't you look in your mirror, Riku?"

He didn't have to look in the mirror. He knew that voice.

"My God." He said.

"It's Valentine's Day." The man said.

"My God." Riku repeated.

"It's selfish of me, Riku, but I just had to see you—"

"My God." Riku said again.

"I've missed you so much and—" Sora whipped off his felt hat and let his spikes tumble in the messy style that Riku had fallen in love with.

Finally he was able to speak coherently. "I've looked everywhere for you. For a year."

Sora's look softened, "That's so sweet—"

"To tell you something."

"Tell me what?"

"That I have a plan."

"What plan?"

"There's a park up ahead."

"All right."

"And I'm going to pull into that park."

"All right."

"And then I'm going to ask you to sit up in the front seat with me."

For the first time Sora sounded a bit hesitant, suspicious. "All right."

He pulled into the park. At night the only illumination was the nimbus of electric light off dirty snow.

They parked next to a pavilion. "OK." Riku said, "Get up front."

"What's going to happen, Riku?"

"You'll see. Please, Sora. Just get up front."

So he got up front.

As soon as Sora was in the front seat, he did it; grabbed the church key he kept on the dash and cut a deep gash on his hand.

In the shadows he saw Sora's entire body begin to tremble, saw the fangs begin to form in the corners of his mouth.

"I should have thought of this that day we walked around the mansion." Riku said, holding out his hand. "I can't turn you back into a human but you can turn me into a vampire."

Sora's eyes were wide and glowing, as they did the first night Riku fell in love. "Riku, are you sure you want to—"

Riku laughed, "Make me your valentine, Sora. Make me your valentine right now."

And Sora smiled softly, tears sliding down his cheeks as he kissed Riku, then sunk his teeth into the man's pale flesh.

Riku's eyes fluttered, and he, too, smiled.

X.X.X.X.X.X.X

Tke: that's it.

Sora: … holy crap.

Tke: now, everyone, please leave me a review!! I added my own touches, since the ending wasn't too much, so I hoped you liked this little bit addition of the ending. It was supposed to end with just Riku's words.

Sora: HOLY CRAP!!

Tke: _**sigh**_ and while Sora's shocked, plushies of the two, as vampires, because Sora's cute with fangs and Riku needs his uke.

Sora: THAT WAS AWSOME!!!

Tke: _**sweatdrop**_


End file.
